Tom Stabile writes on Vista Equity Partner’s hiring of a dozen sales and investor relations staff focused on distribution to the adviser market. One strategic hire is Dan Parant, who joined from KKR and will lead the Vista team as the global head of private wealth solutions. This team covers sales, product, strategy, operations, and investor service functions, mirroring the team build-up of other institutional private fund managers in recent years.
Some other firms that have been adding to their sales rosters include Blue Owl and TPG. Blue Owl has brought in four new specialist managers this year and is looking to launch some thematic semi-liquid strategies to the advisor market. TPG has also made multiple new hires, adding around a half dozen to their team, to assist in the management of their existing private credit offering and the private equity product set they plan on launching next quarter. Kimberly Flynn, President of XA Investments, notes that “they’re taking on some expense there, but they’re basically setting the table and starting to build the distribution pipeline first” as they launch their products.
Vista currently has one private BDC they launched last year, with the hiring spree suggesting they are looking to expand their product offering, focusing on their specialty of private technology companies. Parant is “thrilled to welcome an impressive and growing roster of private wealth professionals to Vista” as they are “continuing to see significant demand across global private wealth channels.” Vista plans to continuing growing the private wealth distribution team as opportunities in the market arise.
Similarly to Vista, more players are now looking to enter into the private wealth market, with few deterred by the early lead in the market from managers like Blackstone, Apollo and KKR. These players have built large teams, launched multiple products, and obtained high levels of assets, and “nobody is conceding anything,” said Flynn. Discussing Vista, she added “we see appetite for specialized expertise or thematic plays in the advisor space.” “It’s really an access play and that’s a huge benefit to carve out a new area that doesn’t really exist right now” Flynn finished.
To read the full article, click here.